Aid agency GOAL has called on the Government to withdraw its ambassador from Uganda "as a matter of urgency" after two soldiers were executed for the murder of an Irish priest.
The two Ugandan soldiers were executed by public firing squad after being convicted by a military court of last week's murder of Co Galway priest Father Declan O'Toole (31) and two of his aides.
GOAL's Chief Executive Mr John O'Shea said the Government should also cease all official involvement with "one of the most repressive regimes in Africa". He said the executions served only to confirm the brutal regime of President Yoweri Museveni.
Corporal James Omediyo and Private Abdullah Mohammed were found guilty of killing Father O'Toole, a Mill Hill missionary from Headford, Co Galway, his driver and an employee of his parish in the northeastern Ugandan district of Kotida last week.
They were executed in public in Kotido town after their pleas for mercy were ignored.
"The fact that these men were taken out and put up against a tree and shot dead stinks," said Mr O'Shea who added: "It is a case of dead men tell no stories".
In an open letter on Sunday Mr O'Shea called on the Taoiseach to cease giving aid to Uganda.
"By giving tax payers money to the Ugandan government, we as a nation are legitimising murder and grand larceny. This is not what the Irish people want to see happen to their hard earned money", he added.
Fr O’Toole’s remains will be flown back to Co Galway later today and the funeral will take place in Headford on Thursday.
He was a member of St Joseph's Society for Foreign Missionaries. The order is more commonly known as Mill Hill Missionaries because of its Mill Hill headquarters in London.
